Parents of 2007 suicide victim file lawsuit against Mentor Schools

Eric Mohat called himself "The Insane Optimistic Musician" on mySpace. He went by "Twiggy" to family and friends.

But on March 29, 2007, after months of persistent bullying in math class, the 17-year-old shot himself in the head, according to a federal lawsuit filed the day before his suicide's two-year anniversary.

A classmate told him that day, within earshot of other Mentor High students and his math teacher, "Why don't you go home and shoot yourself? No one would miss you," the lawsuit claims.

The words destroy Eric's parents, Bill and Janis, who filed the suit.

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"We're barely functioning," said his father, who still gets nightmares.

"I don't even want to get into what it's like being the parents of a suicide victim. That's a special brand of hell."

Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, the lawsuit requests a trial by jury, which could take about a year to materialize, said Kenneth D. Myers, the family's attorney.

It alleges the school district violated Eric's civil right to safety, as well as the family's 14th Amendment rights to raise and educate Eric in a safe environment.

The Mentor School Board, Superintendent Jacqueline Hoynes, High School Principal Joe Spiccia and math teacher Thomas Horvath are listed as defendants.

Myers said the Mohats have requested whatever monetary relief possible, but not for themselves.

"They've decided that if they got any money they'd find some use for it," Myers said, "like paying for training programs or a scholarship fund in Eric's name, some sort of good works that will help get the message out."

In his junior year at Mentor High, Eric only attended first-period math class before leaving for Lakeland Community College, where he was getting good grades, his father said. But when police returned his computer three months after his death, Bill found the beginnings of a first-person story saved on the desktop. It described bullying that made him hate high school.

Teasing, verbal intimidation and name-calling -- terms such as "gay," "queer" and "homo" -- would lead to pushing, shoving and hitting in the classroom and hallways, according to the lawsuit.

An administrator even saw Eric crying in the hallway the day of his death but took no action, the lawsuits claims.

Eric's mother, who works at Roosevelt Elementary in Euclid, calls the filing a final effort to get the Mentor School District to admit it has a problem.

"Quite frankly if they had said, 'Bill and Jan, we're really sorry, we're going to work really hard to make sure this doesn't happen again,' I wouldn't be doing this," she said. "Instead they looked me in the face and said, 'Oh, we didn't know this was happening.' "

Myers said the family's lawsuit is somewhat unprecedented.

"I haven't seen a specific case that involved a school suicide, but I know there definitely are cases that have been brought and won regarding bullying in schools and the school's obligations to keep students safe," he said.

Mentor Schools releases statement

In his last two weeks, Eric begged his math teacher to intervene, but believed he wouldn't discipline students because it could risk their participation in athletics, his father said. The family later heard that Horvath would move bullies away from Eric two to three times a week. They'd always be back the next day.

"Eric only mentioned it to my wife and I just once, six days before his suicide," Bill Mohat said.

"The Friday before, he said the teacher had really reamed these students out, and he thought his problems were over. I asked him, 'Do we have to get involved?' and he said, 'Oh no, it's taken care of.' "

On the advice of legal counsel, Mentor Schools declined to comment beyond a news release.

"Mentor Public Schools takes all claims of bullying and harassment seriously and continues to train staff and students using a robust anti-bullying program, implemented in all 14 schools," the release states. "The district is also committed to raising awareness among students and staff of depressive illness and suicide prevention."

A pilot program at the high school, Give a Hand Take a Hand, has resulted in an eight-student peer-to-peer suicide awareness team that began presenting to ninth- and 10th-graders in February, assisted by the Lake County Suicide Prevention Coalition, the release continues.

"The goal of these presentations is to provide dramatic illustrations of depression symptoms that could indicate a risk of suicide. The message to students is that if they or someone they know is exhibiting such red flags, they should tell a responsible adult immediately."

Student now in the spotlight

The teen who was 6-foot-1-inch, 112 pounds when he died, enjoyed performing choir and later Top 25. When he accompanied the eighth-grade girls' choir in ninth grade, Janis Mohat fondly recalls him saying, "Mom, it's the best odds I'll ever have."

Maintained as a memorial by his family today, Eric's mySpace page preserves his wit and dry sense of humor. His blogs, The Rantings of the Crazed Twig, make clear his passions for snacking, gaming and playing classical piano, which he did for 13 years. He also often lovingly refers to his older "shrink" sister, Erin, now 21, who found his body and now studies to be a school psychologist.

On Dec. 4, 2005, in a blog opposing male makeup at a Top 25 concert, he writes, "I don't care what you think, but I like being a pasty white boy."

He is often playfully self-demeaning.

Less than a month later, though, his mood is depressed: "It's 2006 and I haven't killed myself yet. However, that's not the point. I have to make resolutions now, and they're going to be ones I won't succeed in, I'll bet. The one right off the bat and the one I know I'll succeed in is resolving to never change for anybody, not even if I truly loved them. They can't handle who I am, then screw them!"

Bill Mohat said the family had no warning he would commit suicide.

Pushing for a change in the law

The Mohats have studied Mentor Schools' currently implemented Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, developed in Norway.

Its own Web site describes it as a "comprehensive, school-wide program designed for use in elementary, middle, or junior high schools" -- not senior high schools, they point out.

Even at the middle school level, a 2006 study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health found "some mixed positive effects varying by gender, ethnicity/race, and grade but no overall effect."

Mentor Schools rebutted this in its statement: "This program provides research-driven strategies for preventing bullying at the individual, classroom and school building levels."

More than 1,000 Mentor teachers, administrators and other staff members, including bus drivers and janitors, were trained in Olweus awareness Sept. 12, 2007.

Still, Eric's father said the climate must change. Accidentally killing another student with a car is involuntary manslaughter, punishable in its misdemeanor form by up to six months of local jail time, he said, but harassing another student for years and driving them to suicide is criminal menacing, punishable in Mentor by up to two weeks community service.

It angers him that Eric's police report doesn't indicate bullying because it wasn't reported. Three of Eric's classmates also killed themselves that year, he believes. If that's true, Mentor High's rates were 13 times the national average.

All of those could have been prevented if teachers who witness bullying were required to report it, and if the school was required to notify parents the day of the incident, the Mohats believe.

"Until bullying is treated as the hate crime that it is, this is going to continue," Bill Mohat said. "We'd like to see things changed on a national level. We'll probably be pushing that agenda the rest of our lives."

He paused and took a deep breath to think. "When a child is killed, what do you have left but some kind of a crusade?"